[BRICS-Xiamen]China’s Plan to Align with BRICS’ Development Strategy

This year marks the dawn of the second decade of construction of the BRICS mechanism as well as China’s turn to hold the rotating chair.

Under the theme “BRICS: Stronger Partnership for a Brighter Future,” BRICS countries are joining hands to intensify their partnership, review past cooperation experience, build consensus for future cooperation, and map out a new plan for cooperation characterized by the motto “new starting point, new motivation, new measures.”

Consequently, the international community, including BRICS countries as well as many emerging economies and developing countries, are full of expectations.

Future Opportunities and Challenges

As we embrace the second decade of cooperation, BRICS are facing important opportunities as well as great challenges. The current international community is facing the situation that anti-globalization trends, protectionism and populism are rising up, and many unstable factors are increasing.

In the face of these challenges, BRICS must strengthen the coordination and cooperation between countries to jointly address severe international situations, to further cement BRICS’ development strategy, to explore the sustainable development of South-South cooperation, to create a new model for win-win cooperation, and to pave a path for common global prosperity.

Anti-globalization trends and passive behavior of big Western powers have altered the new wave of globalization, and international strength is in a period of great change. The international order has entered a “post order” era. For BRICS, this is a challenge as well as an opportunity.

As both participant and beneficiary of the global free trade system, BRICS should seize this opportunity to strengthen cooperation, participate more in global governance and globalization in a broader and deeper manner, and bear responsibilities of global governance to begin playing a leading role instead of being a follower in such efforts.

As a representative of emerging economies and developing countries, BRICS should kick off its second decade by expanding its “circle of friends”, unite emerging economies and developing countries, and strengthen South-South cooperation. It should join hands with developed countries that advocate an open economy to hedge against the conservative tide of anti-globalization, formulate new rules for global free trade, maintain a multilateral trading system, form a platform for an open world economy, make rules for fair and reasonable global governance, and hone the current system of global governance.

For many years, BRICS countries have contributed tremendously to the formulation of rules for globalization and global governance with substantial achievements that have promoted global governance.

In 2016, for instance, China hosted the G20 Summit in Hangzhou, Zhejiang Province, where 29 achievement documents were realized. This showcases China’s ability to formulate global economic governance rules.

May this year, Chinese President Xi Jinping delivered a speech on the Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation, advocating the establishment of a fair, reasonable and transparent regulation system for international economic trade and construction around economic globalization that is open, inclusive, mutually-beneficial and balanced. The initiative has won wide recognition around the world.

China’s Plan

Today, different BRICS countries are experiencing different social and economical development: China and India continue to maintain rapid growth; Russia has passed peak crises but is still plagued by economic difficulties; Brazil is struggling through reform with new policies to aid its economic recovery; and South Africa is striving to climb up from its economic low point.

This explains why BRICS countries should stay together, as always, to overcome difficulties, reinforce each others’ development strategy to build a community of shared future and weave a win-win cooperation pattern for a better future for all five countries.

The Belt and Road Initiative, a key program of the new century, is the most important public product that China, a large responsible country, has offered to the international community, and it has attracted global attention.

The spirit of the Silk Road is characterized by “peace and cooperation, openness and inclusiveness, mutual learning and mutual benefit, win-win results” and “sharing, discussing and coconstructing,” making the program highly acclaimed and accepted by many countries.

BRICS countries have responded to the initiative positively in general and are now striving to align their own development strategies with the Belt and Road Initiative to ensure mutual benefits and win-win results.

Construction of the Belt and Road has been accelerated, and Sino-Russian strategic mutual trust has never been stronger in history. Fully aware of the potential benefits of such campaigns, Russia has agreed to integrate its popular “Eurasian economic union” with the Belt and Road Initiative.

In 2015, China and Russia signed a joint statement on integration in Moscow, at which time Russian President Vladimir Putin expressed belief in a harmonious complementary relationship between the two countries. He asserted that China’s Belt and Road Initiative is conducive to accelerating a free trade area in the Asia-Pacific region and that some of its measures would help implement a proposal to integrate the region.

May of this year, President Putin attended the Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation, evidencing Russia’s recognition and support for the Belt and Road Initiative.

Of the BRICS countries, India has shown the most complex attitude towards the Belt and Road Initiative. It hasn’t yet merged its own relevant development strategies with the Belt and Road Initiative.

Some think-tank experts in India hold that the ideas of the 21st-Century Maritime Silk Road collide and overlap with their country’s “India-Ocean strategy” and point to the unsettled territorial dispute between China and India and competition for global economic benefits as reasons not to participate. These opinions are why India says no to China’s Belt and Road Initiative.

Others argue that the Belt and Road Initiative has already had a positive effect in South and Central Asia and inspired a positive response from many countries around the world. If India refuses to share the benefits of the Belt and Road Initiative, it will surely marginalize itself. These analysts suggest India join the game as early as possible. In their eyes, the Belt and Road Initiative aligns with the interests of India perfectly, especially in segments of industrial-park development and infrastructure construction: India needs to learn from China’s experience and can use its investment.

While China’s Belt and Road Initiative was taking off, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi publicly declared that India intended to strengthen the construction of interconnection with South Asian countries. Logically, the two countries can work side-by-side to strengthen cooperation and jointly promote prosperity and stability in South Asia.

Modi also believes that China and India will eventually become perfect partners if they build concrete mutual trust and communicate more actively on specific topics, objectives and means as well as on factors like the environment and employment.

People of different circles in South Africa have paid close attention to the Belt and Road Initiative since its inception. Scholars believe that the idea of infrastructure connectivity in the Initiative coincides with China’s assistance in construction of railways, highways, aviation networks and industrialization. Moreover, the Belt and Road Initiative will bring unprecedented opportunities to South Africa, especially in the sectors of infrastructural construction and the marine economy.

The South African Consulate General in Hong Kong and Macao noted that although the country is embraced on three sides by the sea and bestowed with abundant marine resources, South Africa still has much work to do to optimally utilize such resources. “Blue” economic progress can be achieved under the framework of the Belt and Road Initiative by collaborating with China in fields of marine transportation and oil exploration, among many others.

South Africa has already signed a memorandum of understanding on jointly building the Belt and Road and became one of the first participants in the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) as a founding member. South Africa intends to serve as the African hub of the program, making it a key player in the Belt and Road Initiative.

President Jacob Zuma expects to accelerate his country’s industrialization and agricultural modernization and expand cooperation in segments of bilateral economics and trade, science and technology and energy through the power of the Belt and Road Initiative.

Brazil and Latin American countries have always shown great interest in the Belt and Road Initiative, which they consider a new, fully-open strategy and a great opportunity for development that they should seize.

In this context, Brazil led Latin American countries in joining the AIIB, which has been well received by politicians in ruling and opposition parties alike. According to EL PAS, over the past few years, China has invested substantially in Brazil’s infrastructure and energy, making it the largest beneficiary in Latin America.

Zanotto Thomaz, vice president of the St. Paul Federation of Industry and Commerce of Brazil, expressed gratitude for creative ideas and action like the AIIB under the Belt and Road Initiative, which he believes will gradually eliminate trade barriers between China and Brazil and create more open space for cooperation.

Brazilian President Michel Temer admits that China is now Brazil’s most needed partner, with the greatest power to cooperate in infrastructure.

Chinese ambassador to Brazil Li Jinzhang praised Brazil’s painstaking efforts to align its domestic programs with the Belt and Road Initiative.

In May of this year, President Temer sent his strategic affairs secretary Hussein Ali Kaloud to the Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation held in Beijing. Kaloud asserted that the Initiative will help lift Sino-Brazilian bilateral relations to a new high, particularly in their trade cooperation.

Overall, BRICS’ development strategy ideally synergizes with the Belt and Road Initiative, as already demonstrated by participating countries including Russia, South Africa and Brazil, among many others. It is tremendously important for BRICS to cooperate and move forward in the next 10 years.

As Chinese President Xi Jinping noted, BRICS countries are like five fingers, long or short when outstretched – but they work as a fist when clenched together.

BRICS will clearly become a leader of global governance and globalization, create a new model for cooperation and win-win results and lead developing countries towards a shared future by aligning with development strategies and sticking together to overcome difficulties.

The author is a research fellow at the Center for China in the World Economy under Tsinghua University and deputy secretary-general of the BRICS Economic Think Tank.